


The One Where Clint's A Lounge Singer

by dancingloki



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Crack, Gen, ft. Exasperated Babysitter Fury and Sassy Brats Clint&Natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 06:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1847236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingloki/pseuds/dancingloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An undercover mission at a casino nearly ends before it begins when Natasha reveals she can't sing to save her life. Fortunately, Clint has hidden talents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Clint's A Lounge Singer

“Like _Ocean’s Eleven_?”

“Put your hand down, Barton,” Fury said tersely. “Romanoff, what the hell is he talking about?”

The corner of Natasha’s mouth curled up with the hint of a smirk. “It’s a heist movie. These eleven dudes gang up and go undercover to rob a casino, except at the end it turns out that—”

“All right, fine. Yes, like _Ocean’s Eleven_ , except with critical mission information instead of money, and it will _just be the two of you_. Is that clear, Barton?” Fury stared him down until he raised his hands in surrender.

Fury turned away from the agents, fiddling with the device that controlled the briefing screen. A blueprint of the casino appeared.

“Now. The files we need are in the server room, here.” Fury indicated a room on the image. “The security on the room itself is negligible—a first-year student at the academy could beat it. Agent Barton, _put your hand down_ , this is a spy agency, not a motherfucking _kindergarten_.”

“If the security’s so shoddy, then why,” Clint sighed, tipping his chair back on its rear legs, “do Tasha and I have to go?”

“Because, Agent Barton,” Fury snapped without turning around, “it’s a deep cover mission with some of the most suspicious criminal bastards in the world today, because the security surrounding the building itself would probably baffle even the two of you, because the information in those files will give us the names of every corrupt Senator on said criminal bastards’ payrolls and you don’t send a C-team for something that important, and because I fucking said so.”

Behind his back, Clint pulled a face at Natasha, who smothered a snicker.

“ _Moving on_ ,” Fury said forcefully. “You need to get access to the building in the early morning. When the floors are closed to the public, security is minimal and escaping after obtaining the files will be relatively easy. You’ll be going undercover as performers. It may take a while for you to gain their trust, but it should get you the access you need. Now, we’ve already arranged for a nice, non-fatal accident to one of their lounge singers. The audition to replace her is in a week, so Romanoff, start rehearsing. Barton, you’re her accompanist—find an instrument you don’t completely suck at, and get the sheet music.”

Fury shut his eye and took a deep breath to brace himself. “Barton,” he said deliberately, “if your hand is up when I turn around, I swear to God I will shoot you.”

He waited until he heard a rustle of fabric before he turned around.

Barton and Romanoff had the same look on their faces that they’d had the time Barton had adopted a stray Labrador mix and almost blown the extraction when he was caught trying to smuggle it through customs.

“ _What_.”

“Tasha can’t sing,” Barton supplied, unhelpfully.

“I can sing a _little_ ,” she said, kicking his chair lightly.

“Can not,” he retorted.

“Can _too!_ ”

“Can _not_ , remember Agent Hill’s birthday last year and you told everyone you were sick?”

“I _was_ sick, I—”

“ _Agents!_ ” Fury snapped, just as Natasha kicked Clint again—on the shin this time. They turned back to face him, looking vaguely guilty. “Agent Romanoff,” he said, taking another deep breath, “is Agent Barton correct in suggesting that you would be unable to maintain cover as a lounge singer?”

Natasha glared daggers at Clint, then stared resentfully at the far wall, mouth working. Fury raised his eyebrows, waiting. “I guess _technically_ ,” she muttered, at length.

Fury shut his eye again and leaned against the wall, rubbing his temples with one hand. “I need a vacation,” he mumbled under his breath. “All right, you’re dismissed,” he said aloud. “Put any suggestions for an alternate cover in my inbox.”

“Um…” Clint raised his hand, then immediately lowered it again when the vein in Fury’s forehead pulsed. “I can sing.”

“He can,” Natasha confirmed. “He’s got a really nice voice.”

“Kind of mellow, I’ve always thought.”

“Very mellow. Very jazzy.”

“With kind of a husky smoothness, if I do say so myself.”

“And you’d look great in one of those sparkly dresses.” Natasha was smirking. “I’ve been saying for years you’ve got the legs for stilettos.”

Fury cleared his throat pointedly. Clint and Natasha refocused, struggling to wipe the grins off their faces. He sighed again. “Barton. You really think you can pull this off?”

“No problem, Director. Piece of cake.”

Fury nodded to himself, resigned. “Fine. Romanoff, find an instrument.”

“I’m actually pretty good at the piano,” she said carelessly, shrugging. Fury counted to ten in his head.

“Good. Great. Fine. You’re professionals—allegedly—you know what to do, go do it and get out of my sight before I strangle the both of you.”

 “Already gone, boss.” Clint mock-saluted Fury as he followed Natasha out the door, sniggering. Fury sat down heavily, making a mental note to have his blood pressure checked.

***

Clint nodded along to Natasha’s intro riff, nerves jangling. He’d refused Natasha’s repeated attempts to get him into the traditional slinky dress, but she had managed to force him into a tight-fitted suit made almost entirely of sequins.

Natasha, on the other hand, was sophisticated in a suave tuxedo, brim of her hat pulled down over her mirrored sunglasses as she swayed side to side. The free-style notes coalesced into a few melodious chords, and she nodded at him as she reached his cue. Not that he would have missed it.

He leaned in close to the microphone, crooning. “I left a man…” The audience broke into scattered applause as he held the last note, punctuated with the odd whoop and wolf whistle. “Asleep in the nude…”

“Ordinary Morning” was a good opener; smooth, _very_ sexy. Great for putting the audience in the mood. If there was one thing Clint had learned from the circus, it was how to put on a show. Hill had tentatively suggested that he change the pronouns when he’d picked the song. He and Natasha had just stared at her until she’d shrugged and walked away.

There was a respectable amount of applause as he ran the last note, trilling it up and down. He grinned at the crowd, winking at a tipsy elderly lady who was leering at his crotch. “Las Vegas, how we doin’ tonight?” he cooed into the mic, and the crowd cheered.

“That’s great, that’s great. Big hand for my accompanist, how ‘bout it?” Natasha nodded to the audience, hammering out a fancy freestyle tune. “She’s swell, isn’t she?” Clint bounced on his heels. “We got anybody from the east coast here tonight? How ‘bout New York City?” A big cheer went up from house left.

“You’re not doing standup, don’t get carried away,” Natasha warned, mouth barely moving.

“Oh, leave me alone, I’m having fun,” he muttered over his shoulder. “Fantastic, just swell,” he beamed at the audience. “Here’s one special just for you, make you folks homesick.”

He couldn’t see Natasha’s eyes, but he could tell she was rolling them. She lead him in anyway, though.

(Fury’d almost had an apoplectic fit when they’d refused to put together a set list ahead of time. They’d both agreed they didn’t need one, though. They knew each other well enough that Natasha would almost always know what song Clint was thinking of doing next, even before he’d made up his mind.)

Clint didn’t have a specialty, of course, but if he did, “New York State Of Mind” would be it. It was the song he’d auditioned with, and the crowd tonight was _loving_ it just as much as the auditioners had.

He took the ending way up into the higher registers, wailing out a high-powered finale to thunderous applause.

“All right, all right, all right!” he laughed. “Let’s kick it up a notch, shall we?”

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. Natasha went through three of the fake tobacco-less cigarettes S.H.I.E.L.D.’s R&D had developed, and five glasses of watered-down whiskey. She stylized for a bit while Clint took a fifteen-minute rest, and he hit the second set hard with an upbeat version of “It Had To Be You.”

He took a request (and a hundred-dollar bill as a tip, slipped _directly_ into his pants pocket while Natasha snickered) from the now-somewhat-more-than-tipsy elderly lady for the Julie London version of “Love For Sale.” He made sure to keep eye contact with her during the song, rolling his hips in ways that made Natasha choke herself as she tried to keep from laughing.

Clint sailed straight from there into “You Make Me Feel So Young,” which got a laugh, of course. It was smooth seas for the rest of the night. He stuck to the classics, recognizable songs, things the remaining (mostly _very_ inebriated) audience could sing along to.

They finished around midnight. The old lady had long since been carted off, protesting, by some obviously well-meaning younger relatives. They closed out the set, of course, with “One More For The Road,” the few stragglers applauding absently as Clint bowed and headed offstage.

“That was good, I thought,” he ventured. Natasha shrugged.

“Yeah, you did well. Piano’s out of tune in a couple places, but you can’t have everything.” She flashed him a wicked grin. “I think your new girlfriend might have slipped her room number in your pocket with that c-note, you gonna go show the old girl a good time?”

“Ha ha ha.” He shrugged out of the sparkling jacket, hanging it carefully.

The next night, they did it all again.

It didn’t take long for them to gain the security personnel’s full trust. Clint insisted it was his charming smile, while Natasha maintained her professional demeanor had won them over. Either way, they’d only been there two weeks when they made their move.

The security guard on duty didn’t blink; he waved them straight through when they bustled up at one-thirty with a blustered excuse about equipment forgotten backstage.

Five minutes later, they were in the server room, Clint standing watch as Natasha retrieved the data they’d been sent for. She bit her lip and hesitated just for a moment before taking a few extra minutes to make an irreversible wire transfer, dumping the funds from their hidden accounts (not hidden well enough). The ASPCA would wake up to a _lovely_ anonymous donation in the morning, and she knew Clint would appreciate it. Besides, with any luck, the batteries on the microcams she was leaving behind would last long enough that she could get a shot of the look on the crooks’ faces when they discovered their loss.

Ten minutes after that, they were in Natasha’s Camaro on the interstate heading out of the city.

Police sirens blared across the night sky in the distance behind them. Clint turned up the volume and started singing along with the radio. Natasha grinned and stamped down on the accelerator.

**Author's Note:**

> look if you didn't know that Jeremy Renner can sing
> 
> JEREMY RENNER CAN _SING_
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eO37Hft3B8


End file.
